Question for Opposes Scientism Group

[help3434]

I admit that I don't know much about the topic but is seems like a straw-man. Can you give some examples of scientism as it exists today and explain why it is a problem?

[help3434]

[Replying to post 40 by Jester]

I said that because you said that the existence of God was outside the scope of science. If you didn't mean the creator of the universe then I don't know what you mean by "God".

[help3434]

[Replying to post 39 by Jester]

What do you mean by saying that thoughts don't have verification? Would a neurologist agree with you?

[Goat]

Well.. the one thing the metaphysics that science relies on , and the vast amount of metaphysics out there is 'VERIFICATION'.

This assumes two false things:
1. That claiming that scientific verification for the basic assumptions of science is not circular reasoning (though it is), and
2. That the metaphysical arguments I've offered are not supported (though they are).

They are supported by other metaphysical arguments, but what they aren't supported by is any way to VERIFY their accuracy. As far as I am concerned, without the verification step in there someplace, well, the whole thing is just one big structure that is semantically meaninglessness.

A. J. Ayer and Hume agree.

And, just because you claims that 'Scientific Verification and the basic assumptions of science is circular reasoning'... doesn't make it true

That's because.. there is one step involved... and that's verifiation

Because of that, you can have a computer, we have gone to the moon, and you have electricity in your home.

Pretty darn good for something you claim is 'circular'.

[Jester]

I said that because you said that the existence of God was outside the scope of science. If you didn't mean the creator of the universe then I don't know what you mean by "God".

In that case I'd have two basic responses:

1. The question of God has to do with many subjects other than the physical particulars of the earliest state of the universe.

2. Science studies the earliest state of the universe, it does not answer questions regarding a temporal first cause.

Given this, the question of God is clearly one to which science is only tangentially related.

What do you mean by saying that thoughts don't have verification? Would a neurologist agree with you?

I don't know if a randomly selected neurologist would, personally, agree with me. But I do know that, if he disagreed, it would be pretty likely that it is because he's confusing his method for metaphysics.

Neurology correlates brain states to what study participants report as the mental experience they are having. This is immensely important for various reasons. What it is not, however, is a verification that thoughts exist. Rather, neurology simply starts from that assumption (making an argument from neurology circular).

For the person who genuinely believes that there are no thoughts (such as Rosenberg, whom I mentioned earlier), no amount of neurology will provide evidence to the contrary.

Normally, this isn't a problem, because most of us believe that thought exists (so we don't bother debating it–we, even the neurologists among us, simply go on behaving as if it does). But, as soon as one starts insisting that we reject everything which lacks empirical verification, it becomes very important that thoughts are among the things that would need to be rejected.

Properly speaking, science doesn't study thought. It studies brain states and correlates them with verbal reports from test subjects. This is extraordinarily useful and complex, but it simply is not physical verification of thought.

And that is one more reason to reject scientism.

[Jester]

They are supported by other metaphysical arguments, but what they aren't supported by is any way to VERIFY their accuracy.

This assumes essentially the same two false things pointed out already:
1. That these arguments are supported by nothing other than arguments. They are supported by reasonable premises.
2. That this is not circular. It really doesn't matter how many times you capitalize VERIFY, it is still circular reasoning to demand empirical verification in order to support scientism.

I've already mentioned the fact that one's thoughts are obviously real without needing to "VERIFY" them. But, I need to know, do you believe that you have real thoughts?

If so, you need to provide physical evidence for them.
If not, there is a very long list of logical contradictions in your position.

As far as I am concerned, without the verification step in there someplace, well, the whole thing is just one big structure that is semantically meaninglessness.

That is, again, just a statement of scientism. You are free to believe it, but that doesn't mean it isn't unsupported, self-contradictory, and otherwise shown to be false.

A. J. Ayer and Hume agree.

What can I say except "Ayer and Hume were wrong."?
I suppose I can also point out their complete lack of verification for their ideas.

If memory serves, Ayer himself admitted that he'd been wrong later in life. But, either way, old line verificationism is completely dead among people who actually know something of the issue. The experts simply don't take it seriously, and (having read them) I've been trying to explain the reasons why.

And, just because you claims that 'Scientific Verification and the basic assumptions of science is circular reasoning'... doesn't make it true

I completely agree.
First, I've never claimed that the basic assumptions of science are circular. I claimed that they contradict scientism, which is true (they are metaphysical, and scientism rejects the metaphysical).

But the claim that scientism is self-contradictory is not true because I said it was. It is true because the claim that everything needs "VERIFICATION" has no "VERIFICATION" at all.

Thus, it fails its own test.

That's because.. there is one step involved... and that's verifiation

Are we arguing that scientism is true because it only has one step? I can think of many one step methods that are false.

And it is completely unsupported, and otherwise implausible.

So, yes, there is only one step. But what amazes me is that so many factual and logical errors can be packed into a single step.

Because of that, you can have a computer, we have gone to the moon, and you have electricity in your home.

This is simply false.

Science does amazing things like the ones you name. Scientism does nothing but make logical errors. It isn't science, it is a (very poor) metaphysical position that has never done anything to advance science.

[Goat]

They are supported by other metaphysical arguments, but what they aren't supported by is any way to VERIFY their accuracy.

This assumes essentially the same two false things pointed out already:
1. That these arguments are supported by nothing other than arguments. They are supported by reasonable premises.

Are they reasonable premises?? How can you show me, without resorting to other arguments, who premises you can't show to be anywhere near the truth. Are they reasonable because you say so??? That is the whole nut and bolt of my disagreement, you have premises that you claim are 'reasonable', yet you can not show any way to show they are true. That's the key right there. You keep on building arguments on arguments on arguments, yet, you have not shown ANY way to verify any of the premises. Unt9il you can do that, you can not show that the premise is reasonable.


That is the key point of our disagreement. If you can't verify the premise, you can not tell me it's reasonable. You can claim it.. but you can't show it. I had not heard about A.J Ayers formation of the verification principle until recently, although I whole heatedly agree with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Ayer

Ayer is best known for popularising the verification principle, in particular through his presentation of it in Language, Truth, and Logic (1936). The principle was at the time at the heart of the debates of the so-called Vienna Circle which Ayer visited as a young guest, and others including the leading light of the circle, Moritz Schlick were already offering their own papers on the issue.[23] Ayer's own formulation was that a sentence can only be meaningful if it has verifiable empirical import, otherwise it is either "analytical" if tautologous, or "metaphysical" (i.e. meaningless, or "literally senseless"). He started work on the book at the age of 23] and it was published when he was 26

[Jester]

Are they reasonable premises??

Which premises?
When we get onto other subjects, we can look at individual arguments individually. But, unless you have an argument to show that all premises ever used for all metaphysical arguments are unreasonable, this is not a valid rebuttal of my statement.

But, since you stress this as the main issue:

That is the key point of our disagreement. If you can't verify the premise, you can not tell me it's reasonable.

Perhaps the most fair thing I could do is have you tell me.
That being the case, are "I have thoughts" and "entities shouldn't be multiplied unnecessarily (Ockham's Razor)" reasonable?

I had not heard about A.J Ayers formation of the verification principle until recently, although I whole heatedly agree with it.

Yes, I've always thought your statements fit in well with it.

But, you should also look up the reasons why it (along with logical positivism) has been universally abandoned among philosophers.

The most significant reason is that it fails its own test: there is no way to verify the verification principle. As such, it should be abandoned, according to itself.


Most importantly, this is simply another restatement of the idea that everything that is not physically verifiable should be rejected. It is not an argument supporting that idea.

And, next to the self-contradiction, this is the biggest problem the verification principle has: there is no reason to believe it.

[help3434]

I said that because you said that the existence of God was outside the scope of science. If you didn't mean the creator of the universe then I don't know what you mean by "God".

In that case I'd have two basic responses:

1. The question of God has to do with many subjects other than the physical particulars of the earliest state of the universe.

2. Science studies the earliest state of the universe, it does not answer questions regarding a temporal first cause.

Given this, the question of God is clearly one to which science is only tangentially related.

Related enough for the purpose of our discussion. If the origin of universe is within the scope of science, and the origin of the universe is God, then God is within the scope of science. Science is not yet able to study a temporal first cause, but that does not mean it won't ever be able to.

[Jester]

Related enough for the purpose of our discussion.

For purposes of a casual discussion, these should be treated as separate subjects. The points of overlap are rare.

If the origin of universe is within the scope of science, and the origin of the universe is God, then God is within the scope of science.

This strikes me as very sloppy. Let me rewrite it to be more clear.

The physical conditions immediately following the origin of the universe are studied by science. God is the non-physical cause of the origin of the universe. Therefore, this gives us no reason to think that God can be studied by science.

This is more scientistic thinking. It simply collapses "science studies the physical component of x" to "science studies x". When one starts using this to argue that "x" is strictly physical, this becomes a circular argument.

But, there's yet another mistake here:

Science is not yet able to study a temporal first cause, but that does not mean it won't ever be able to.

I agree that this does not mean science won't be able to, but there are other very good reasons why this will be the case (what I've already said aside, there are good reasons to think that the temporal first cause is non-physical).

As such, I'd say this is a straw man argument. My position has nothing to do with what science can or cannot currently study. It was about what science can, by definition, ever study.

[help3434]

Related enough for the purpose of our discussion.

For purposes of a casual discussion, these should be treated as separate subjects. The points of overlap are rare.

If the origin of universe is within the scope of science, and the origin of the universe is God, then God is within the scope of science.

This strikes me as very sloppy. Let me rewrite it to be more clear.

The physical conditions immediately following the origin of the universe are studied by science. God is the non-physical cause of the origin of the universe. Therefore, this gives us no reason to think that God can be studied by science.

This is more scientistic thinking. It simply collapses "science studies the physical component of x" to "science studies x". When one starts using this to argue that "x" is strictly physical, this becomes a circular argument.

But, there's yet another mistake here:

Science is not yet able to study a temporal first cause, but that does not mean it won't ever be able to.

I agree that this does not mean science won't be able to, but there are other very good reasons why this will be the case (what I've already said aside, there are good reasons to think that the temporal first cause is non-physical).

As such, I'd say this is a straw man argument. My position has nothing to do with what science can or cannot currently study. It was about what science can, by definition, ever study.

No mistake or straw-man there. You are the one that said that science does not study the temporal first cause of the universe, and I replied by saying that does not mean that science can not ever study it. I never said that you said that science won't ever be able to.

Will science be able to figure weather the temporal first cause is non-physical? What are those good reasons? What can't science by definition study? What does it mean for something to be non-physical? Concepts are not physical, but that is not the same thing as a literal God that can create a universe. Photons have no mass, but they are studied by science.

In any case it is my understanding that what the new atheists do is look at what we do know about the origin of the universe, our planet, and our species, and say it seems unlikely that an all power God would do things that way, or is even necessary to explain life, the universe and everything. What is wrong with that? How is that "scientism" any more than looking at what we know about lightening and saying that it is unlikely that they are caused by Zeus? They are using Occam's Razor to say that God has an explanation doesn't seem very likely.